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Decentralization 1 Decentralization Decentralization 1 Decentralization Decentralization (or decentralisation) is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority.[1][2] While decentralization, especially in the governmental sphere, is widely studied and practiced, there is no common definition or understanding of decentralization. The meaning of decentralization may vary in part because of the different ways it is applied.[3] Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, economics and technology. History The word "centralization" came into use in France in 1794 as the post-French Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word "decentralization" came into usage in the 1820s.[4] "Centralization" entered written English in the first third of the 1800s;[5] mentions of decentralization also first appear during those years. In the mid-1800s Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the French Revolution began with "a push towards decentralization...[but became,]in the end, an extension of centralization."[6] In 1863 retired French bureaucrat Maurice Block wrote an article called “Decentralization” for a French journal which reviewed the dynamics of government and bureaucratic centralization and recent French efforts at decentralization of government functions.[7] Ideas of liberty and decentralization were carried to their logical conclusions during the 19th and 20th centuries by anti-state political activists calling Alexis de Tocqueville themselves "anarchists", "libertarians and even decentralists. Alexis de Tocqueville was an advocate, writing: "Decentralization has, not only an administrative value, but also a civic dimension, since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will."[8] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), influential anarchist theorist wrote: "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization."[9] In early twentieth century America a response to the centralization of economic wealth and political power was a decentralist movement. It blamed large-scale industrial production for destroying middle class shop keepers and small manufacturers and promoted increased property ownership and a return to small scale living. The decentralist movement attracted Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar.[10] New Left and libertarian individuals who identified with social, economic, and often political decentralism through the ensuing years included Ralph Borsodi, Wendell Berry, Paul Goodman, Carl Oglesby, Karl Hess, Donald Livingston, Kirkpatrick Sale (author of Human Scale),[11] Murray Bookchin,[12] Dorothy Day,[13] Senator Mark O. Hatfield,[14] Mildred J. Loomis[15] and Bill Kauffman.[16] Leopold Kohr, author of the 1957 book The Breakdown of Nations - known for it statement “Whenever something is wrong, something is too big” - was a major influence on E.F. Schumacher, author of the 1973 bestseller Small is Beautiful:Economics As If People Mattered .[17][18] In the next few years a number of best-selling books promoted decentralization. Daniel Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society discussed the need for decentralization and a “comprehensive overhaul of government structure to find the appropriate size and scoope of units”, as well as the need to detach functions from current state boundaries, creating regions based on functions like water, transport, Decentralization 2 education and economics which might have “different ‘overlays’ on the map.”[19][20] Alvin Toffler published Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980). Discussing the books in a later interview, Toffler said that industrial-style, centralized, top-down bureaucratic planning would be replaced by a more open, democratic, decentralized style which he called “anticipatory democracy.”[21] Futurist John Naisbitt's 1982 book “Megatrends” was on The New York Times Best Seller list for more than two years and sold 14 million copies.[22] Naisbitt’s book outlines 10 “megatrends”, the fifth of which is from centralization to decentralization.[23] In 1996 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler had a best selling book Reinventing Government proposing decentralist public administration theories which became labeled the "New Public Management".[24] Stephen Cummings wrote that decentralization became a "revolutionary megatrend" in the 1980s.[25] In 1983 Diana Conyers asked if decentralization was the "latest fashion" in development administration.[26] Cornell University's project on Restructuring Local Government states that decentralization refers to the "global trend" of devolving responsibilities to regional or local governments.[27] Robert J. Bennett's Decentralization, Intergovernmental Relations and Markets: Towards a Post-Welfare Agenda describes how after World War II governments pursued a centralized "welfarist" policy of entitlements which now has become a "post-welfare" policy of intergovernmental and market-based decentralization. According to a 1999 United Nations Development Programme report: "A large number of developing and transitional countries have embarked on some form of decentralization programmes. This trend is coupled with a growing interest in the role of civil society and the private sector as partners to governments in seeking new ways of service delivery...Decentralization of governance and the strengthening of local governing capacity is in part also a function of broader societal trends. These include, for example, the growing distrust of government generally, the spectacular demise of some of the most centralized regimes in the world (especially the Soviet Union) and the emerging separatist demands that seem to routinely pop up in one or another part of the world. The movement toward local accountability and greater control over one's destiny is, however, not solely the result of the negative attitude towards central government. Rather, these developments, as we have already noted, are principally being driven by a strong desire for greater participation of citizens and private sector organizations in governance.”[28] Overview Systems approach Those studying the goals and processes of implementing decentralization often use a systems theory approach. The United Nations Development Programme report applies to the topic of decentralization "a whole systems perspective, including levels, spheres, sectors and functions and seeing the community level as the entry point at which holistic definitions of development goals are most likely to emerge from the people themselves and where it is most practical to support them. It involves seeing multi-level frameworks and continuous, synergistic processes of interaction and iteration of cycles as critical for achieving wholeness in a decentralized system and for sustaining its development.”[29] However, decentralization itself has been seen as part of a systems Graphical comparison of centralized and approach. Norman Johnson of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote decentralized system. in 1999 paper: "A decentralized system is where some decisions by the Decentralization 3 agents are made without centralized control or processing. An important property of agent systems is the degree of connectivity or connectedness between the agents, a measure global flow of information or influence. If each agent is connected (exchange states or influence) to all other agents, then the system is highly connected."[30] University of California, Irvine's Institute for Software Research's "PACE" project is creating an "architectural style for trust management in decentralized applications." It adopted Rohit Khare's definition of decentralization: "A decentralized system is one which requires multiple parties to make their own independent decisions" and applies it to Peer-to-peer software creation, writing: ...In such a decentralized system, there is no single centralized authority that makes decisions on behalf of all the parties. Instead each party, also called a peer, makes local autonomous decisions towards its individual goals which may possibly conflict with those of other peers. Peers directly interact with each other and share information or provide service to other peers. An open decentralized system is one in which the entry of peers is not regulated. Any peer can enter or leave the system at any time...[31] Goals Decentralization in any area is a response to the problems of centralized systems. Decentralization in government, the topic most studied, has been seen as a solution to problems like economic decline, government inability to fund services and their general decline in performance of overloaded services, the demands of minorities for a greater say in local governance, the general weakening legitimacy of the public sector and global and international pressure on countries with inefficient, undemocratic, overly centralized systems.[32] The following four goals or objectives are frequently stated in various analyses
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